Families Continue Painful Wait for News About Missing Jet

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia—Authorities tightened security Monday morning at the hotel outside Kuala Lumpur where families of passengers on missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 continued the painful wait for news of their loved ones.

European Pressphoto Agency

Family members of passengers aboard a missing Malaysian Airlines jet are comforted by a member of the Buddhist Tzu Chi at a hotel in Putrajaya, Malaysia, on Mar. 10.

Nearly all of the 380 rooms at the Everly Hotel have been booked by passengers’ families and Malaysia Airlines staff. They’ve been here since Saturday, the day the jet went missing as it made its way toward Beijing. As of Monday morning, search and rescue teams continued to scour the South China Sea for signs of the missing airliner.

Security guards have prevented access to conference rooms reserved for the families and the volunteer workers there to provide counseling and support. A Malaysia Airlines’ crisis center–set up to register families–was moved to a new location on a different floor of the hotel, without notice.

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As the mystery drags on about the fate of the missing plane, families of the passengers have shied away from the media. One group arrived at the hotel early in the day with one woman in tears. The family was swiftly ushered in through a side door by volunteers. Few family members appeared in the hotel lobby in the morning.

Late Sunday night, a Vietnamese search and rescue plane spotted possible fragments of the missing plane around 50 miles south-southwest of Vietnam’s Tho Chu island. Malaysia Airlines said late Sunday it had received no confirmation regarding the suspected debris.

Volunteer workers in the Everly Hotel say Malaysia Airlines has not yet told the families about the sighted debris. ”We also don’t know,” said one member of Malaysia Airlines’ crisis management team. “It has not been confirmed (as Flight MH370 debris),” he said.

Flight MH370 disappeared in the early hours of Saturday morning with 239 people on board, triggering an international search effort spanning a vast area both east and west of peninsular Malaysia.

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